>> As so many have said, it's
impossible to fully convey the
staggering toll of this covid
pandemic.
The statistical comparisons have
certainly been noted.
The deaths in the U.S. Are
roughly equal to losing as many
people each day as we lost in
the attacks of September
eleventh, 2001 but for almost an
entire year.
It's also roughly equal to
losing the entire populations of
Boston and Pittsburgh.
But numbers describe just one
part of this.
And each life touches so many
other lives.
Ed Yong of the atlantic has been
writing about this for more than
two years.
And he joins us again tonight.
One of the things you mention is
how different it is morning
these deaths.
You spoke about this because
covid ticked off so many risk
factors.
What is that a reference to?
>> The grief of many of the
people I have spoken to is
incredibly prolonged.
It is disenfranchised grief
which means it doesn't seem to
acknowledge or validate.
Many of the people I have spoken
to who of lost loved ones to
covid never got to have the
rituals that allow us to mourn.
How did your loved one get
covid?
Did they have a comorbidity?
Were they vaccinated or not?
All of these factors have pushed
their grief will of the surface
to a place where they can't deal
with it.
They haven't been able to go out
and about and try to live their
normal lives.
At this moment, when so much of
the country is going back to
normal, it's as if this grief
has been placed in a time
capsule then released again.
So many of the people are
sorrowful and raging all over
again.
>> You write and there is so
much to ask you about, you write
about how this has affected
covid in morning those we have
lost has affected differently
the elderly and those with
disabilities.
>> The millions of death who
have been recorded have not
fallen across the country
randomly.
They have been concentrated
among the elderly, the sick and
immunocompromised, black and
brown people, poor and low
income people.
That is contributed to our
normalization of those deaths.
They were already marginalized
before the pandemic happened and
they will continue to be
marginalized in death as well as
in life.
Meanwhile, the people who set
the narrative disproportionately
don't fall into those groups.
They had the earliest and
easiest access to vaccines and
other lifesaving measures and
they were quickest to decide
that the pandemic was over
without grappling with the
massive costs that the groups
that I mentioned continue to
face.
>> You mentioned the vaccines.
Did you see a difference in the
reaction to the mourning to
those we lost before we had a
vaccine or to those who had a
vaccine but still succumbed as
opposed to those who made the
decision not to get vaccinated?
>> Absolutely.
If you talk to those who lost
loved ones after the vaccinates
came out is the question is
where they vaccinated?
They will get that before
hearing things like I sorry for
your loss.
Decent acts of compassion.
That question about whether they
are vaccinated cast judgment
upon the dead, forces them to
justify the loss of their loved
one and their grief.
In many cases, these were people
who didn't have access to
vaccines, who still continue to
not have access despite them
being readily available for
matters for time or effort.
People who have lost loved ones
who decided not to get
vaccinated, who bought into
misinformation, does that
warrant a death sentence?
Does that mean you shouldn't be
allowed to grieve someone you
have lost?
That person is still dead, they
still leave behind people who
are broken and morning and who I
think deserve the space and
grace to cope with their grief.
>> These are all questions we
are all struggling with.
One of the other points you make
is that as you are talking to
these people who have lost a
loved one to covid, it is your
observation that the so-called
stages of grief are not what
many people have come to believe
, that there are five stages of
grief and they follow one after
the other.
>> That's not how grief works.
There aren't these discrete
stages.
They don't go in an orderly
pattern.
They don't always end in
acceptance.
Leading to some kind of closure
is a myth and an unhelpful one.
Any of the people who have lost
loved ones to covid because
their grief has been so
prolonged have gone through
multiple cycles of these
emotions.
They don't progress the way
society thinks they should.
They don't get over it really
quickly.
Another myth we have is that
time heals everything.
Time itself heals nothing.
Time gives you the opportunity,
the chances to learn ways of
coping with that grief.
The pandemic denied people those
chances because of the lack of
rituals, sympathy, thing -- the
thing that killed loved ones is
on the news.
It's not a recipe for learning
how to deal with grief.
It is a recipe for that grief to
fester and stagnate which is
what we are seeing now.
That's why things like
memorials, acts of national
recognition are going to be so
important for the 9 million
people who have lost their loved
ones.
>> Those memorials will
continue.
They will keep coming, this
pandemic is still very much with
us.
Thank you so much.